Out of the Ashes
by Chibi's Sister
Summary: Her smile was like the city itself-all sharp edges and shadows with no trace of softness left. "Do you still think you can save me?"
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Recently, a friend re-sparked my interest in fanfiction and reminded me of all the stories I'd planned to write, including this one, that never left me alone.

...This could be a very long story...

* * *

 _"Therefore I despise myself_ _and repent in dust and ashes"_

* * *

Neon lights hum and pop overhead, and she moves in and out of their garish light and the flickering shadows. Somewhere, not too far away, a deep bass beat rumbles, and faint voices float over it. She's close. She knew they'd be here. She knew it.

 _I found them. The old subway station on 29_ _th_ _and Miller._

The night air is empty, cold and dark, with just a hint of winter chill seeping into the wind. She blocks out the cold, blocks out everything but the mission. Tonight's the night.

 _Here we go…_

* * *

Too much sunlight leaks through the battered blinds—relics of the 2000s, no doubt—and spills through the kitchen. She glares at the windows a she fishes two pieces of bread out of the near-empty loaf bag. It shouldn't be this bright first thing in the morning.

"That's because it's almost ten."

She refuses to jump, even if she hadn't even realized she'd said the words out loud. She shakes her head instead, more at herself than at him. Talking to herself again. That was a dangerous habit—but a hard one to break. Who else did she have to talk to?

"We should talk," he says from over the rim of his battered coffee mug, echoing her thoughts _again_. It catches her so off guard she almost drops her bread on the floor.

"Talk?" she echoes, as if she's the mother of a teen who just trotted out some potentially-obscene new piece of slang. She drops the bread in the toaster and slams the lever down. "What is there to talk about?"

He sets down the mug. "Well, the nightmares, for one." She can hear the frown in his voice even without turning to look at him. "They're getting more frequent, Leigh." He hesitates, then adds, "Your file didn't mention them…" He lets the half-formed question trail off.

"No." Why would it? No one in Stonegate acknowledged that they were happening. None of her cellmates ever had a death wish, and it wasn't the guards' problem. The counselors? They never saw her sleep, and she'd have cut off her right hand before telling any of them a single word about them.

He drums his fingers on the table, a restless habit that seems to belong to a younger man. "Well, I thought we could start by talking about them now."

 _Start._ As if this is going to be a _thing._ As if she is going to bare her soul to this man, who seems to think that a court order makes him her lost-lost grandfather or uncle or something, and spill her darkest secrets. As if they are going to do cozy dream-shares over the breakfast table like they live in some non-euthanasia-happy version of _The Giver._ (Stonegate has a library, okay? Prison sentences are too long not to read.) As if he could possibly understand, even if she did tell him.

Except, he just might…she thinks…she can't be sure… not without using her gift, and she can't, won't, not again.

Besides, the stupid bracelet-thing would go off.

"What's there to talk about?" she says, pouring orange juice into a glass—coffee is not a Good Idea for people like her—and sitting down. "It was just a nightmare."

"What about?"

She shrugs. "Murder. Mayhem. The usual." She looks him dead in the eyes and grins.

He doesn't react. She hates that. He doesn't edge away from her glance, or fume that she's not taking him seriously. He just returns her look steadily, waiting.

No one looks her in the eyes. They're not crazy…or even if they are, they're not that crazy. No one wants to set-off the psycho-freak who can make you wish you were dead without laying a finger on you. But this guy…he just stares back at her, like he's too dumb to know what she is, like he just sees some regular girl.

She hates it.

The toast pops, giving her an excuse to get up from the table. "Look, I don't actually want to talk about this," she says. Her knife digs into the butter a little deeper than strictly necessary. "I'm not going to talk about it."

He takes a long sip of coffee. "Are the nightmares always about the same thing?"

"Are you listening to me?" she demands. A tiny sliver of butter flies off the knife and lands somewhere on the linoleum.

"Yes." He leans forward. "You said you didn't want to talk about it. _It._ Not them. So, if your nightmares are an it, they'll all connected to one thing, right?"

She grits her teeth. "We're not talking about it."

She can't. She won't. He can't make her. No one can.


	2. Chapter 2

_You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me_

* * *

Rainwater drips off the edge of the station's tin roof, splashing into oily puddles on the slick black pavement. It's always raining in this city. She hates it. There's so much in this city that she hates.

But tonight, rain is her ally. It provides cover, soaking the streets in even deeper darkness than usual, and scattering the neon glow of the signs into flickering shadows. The soft, irregular rat-a-tat on the roofs and streets blankets the small sounds she can't help but make. Best, of all, it will keep the Claws in their den.

The plan is a simple one. If she closes her eyes, she can see it, scrawled out in purple sharpie on the second to last page of her Civics notebook.

 _Step One, find the secret base of operations for the Red Claws._

For weeks, they'd mapped every known incident involving the Claws. They'd scoured the Net, pouring over every two-line news story that seemed to hint at their involvement, tracking down every detail they could. Leads weren't easy to come by—talking about the Claws was dangerous—but there were a few druggies and drunks who'd spill their guts about the punks with red tattoos they'd seen around. Eventually, the red dots plotted on the satellite map had formed a haze around the east end, and from there they'd narrowed it to the Bayside District. The closer they'd gotten, though, the more leads had dried up. No one was talking. Not in Bayside.

They had to be there.

* * *

When she gets back from her shift at Val-U-Mart, he's waiting for her. The breakfast dishes have been exchanged for a half-empty glass of water and an unopened can of pink grapefruit soda; otherwise she would have thought he hadn't moved all morning. Elbows propped on the table, he's the picture of casualness, but the relentless gleam in his eyes makes her feel like a cornered squirrel.

Before she even makes it into the room, he picks the conversation right back up from where she dropped it earlier. "You ready to talk about things now?"

"You sound like my ex," she laughs, a brittle sound to go with the empty lie. When had they ever talked about things? That wasn't his style. He'd just charged headlong into everything, and she'd gone right along, savoring the rush as long as it lasted.

"Ex?" Grayson arches an eyebrow. "You've never mentioned an ex before."

Even though the only thing she's said about him is fake, she immediately feels exposed. Vulnerable. "There's a lot of thing about my life I've never mentioned," she tells him, and almost cringes at how blustering and defensive the words come out.

"Yeah, that's why we need to talk. Part of your rehabilitation, Leigh."

Rehabilitation. Like she's a drug addict or a war veteran or the victim of some horrific accident.

Isn't she?

"What do you want to talk about?" she says wearily, collapsing into the empty chair opposite him. She tugs off her flimsy sneakers with the squeaky soles that would have been a death warrant in another life. Her teal polo smells like cheap deodorant, stale sweat, and Lysol, and if she has to tell one more person to have a nice day, she just might stab them instead, parole or no parole.

"I want to know about the nightmares," he says quietly, "but if you're not ready to talk about those yet, that's alright." A quick grin tugs at the corner of his mouth, giving his face a boyish light. Not for the first time, she thinks that he must have been quite the charmer in his younger days. "Tell me about the ex."

A stab of pain so sharp it's almost physical runs through her gut. She hugs her arms to her chest before she notices and makes herself drop them. She tries for a playful grin. It feels glaring fake, almost ghoulish, on her face. "Which one?"

There's only ever been him.

* * *

"You know, if we want to pass Civics, we should probably actually work on Civics during study hall, just every once in a while."

"This is Civics," she points out, hunched over the school computer, fingers tapping at the keyboard. The screen is too big—anyone who really wanted to could see what they're working on—but they're in the back of the class, and the map of Gotham's east side pockmarked with red site tags and corresponding annotations certainly looks more like a school project than something two teenagers would be messing with for fun.

"You know what I mean. We haven't even started our project." He tosses his dark hair out of his eyes, his bangs too long again. Her fingers itch to brush them off his face, but instead she finishes entering the few details they know about the warehouse break-in last night.

"This is a project." _The_ project. The mission. The biggest, realest thing they've done. Or it will be, once they actually do it.

"We can't really turn it in, though."

"And here I thought I was supposed to be the nerd. Life's not all about grades."

"You know, I've heard that, but my mom says it's an old wives' tale." He laughs, but she can tell by the way he rubs at the side of his jaw that he's not entirely kidding. "She about flipped when I brought home that C on my last test."

"You should have studied." She'd made a B on the same test. Her parents hadn't asked to see her grades. They never did ask about her grades. It wasn't that they didn't care—they did, they cared so, so, much—but grades were the least of it. Sometimes, she wondered exactly how many classes she'd have to fail before they'd worry if she was doing her homework.

"When, Tam?" Frustration turns his voice into a growl. "When was I supposed to study?"

She bites her lip, hard, as her own surge of frustration swells inside of her. She's not talking up _that_ much of his time. Not _all_ of it. If school and the Shade was all he had to divide his hours between, there would be enough to go around.

But three ways? It was never going to work.

"This is important, Matt." Too much anger leaks into her voice, and she turns back to the screen to hide her face.

"Is it?"

She whirls back around, shocked. "How can you say that?"

"Because it's been weeks, and we don't even have a location."

"We will. Give it time."

"And what if I don't have more time to give?" he insists. They shouldn't be talking like this. It's too loud, too public, but the conversation can't be stopped now.

"You want to just give up?" She can't believe what's she hearing. Can't believe it from him, of all people. "Matt, this was your idea!"

"Yeah, well maybe it was a dumb idea. What exactly did we think we were going to do, anyway?"

She stares at him. There's a dull roar in her ears, and all the lights seem too bright. She knows this pain just behind her temples, and she breathes it away in slow, controlled breaths, just like she's been taught. "We have a plan," she reminds him. _We had a promise._


End file.
